A Glossary of Hate
A reader asked me to comment on an article that appeared in the New York Times this week under the headline “What Makes A Protest Antisemitic.”1
It’s a fair and important question, and the accusation of antisemitism should never be invoked lightly.
The article quotes students with differing views (giving far more space to Jewish fellow travelers than their numbers warrant), but offers no means to settle the matter. So I will taxonomize.
Columbia University itself helpfully drew the line at any “chants, signs, taunts and social media posts from our own students that mock and threaten to ‘kill’ Jewish people.” Gee, thanks. Coming from a school that punishes students for “micro-aggressions”, this is a weirdly high bar.
Here’s what they missed:
Any statement of support for Hamas, as opposed to the Palestinian people.
Any reference to Zionism. Nearly all Jews are Zionists, and their desire for nationhood in their homeland is no different from any other peoples’. Exactly what right does Spain have to exist that Israel doesn’t?2.
Globalize the Intifada. There have been two Intifadas against Israel, both of which involved suicide bombings targeting Israeli civilians on buses, in malls, food markets, and a discotheque3. There is no other context. “Globalize” is clear enough. Kill Jews wherever they are in the world.
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. This slogan originated with the Palestine Liberation Organization, which Yassir Arafat founded in 1964. Note that this predates the occupation of the West Bank, so what could it possibly have meant? It meant, and still means, the destruction of Pre-1967 Israel and the subjugation of whatever Jews survive.
The tortured and inverted abuse of words like Apartheid, Genocide, Colonizer and Occupier.
The hypocrisy of calls for divestiture, accusations of war crimes, and Israel’s alleged “original sin,” as if its founding were somehow less moral than that of Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, or any other post-war adjudication of sovereignty.
I wrote at length about the latter two in my first article, immediately following the October 7 attack4, and I’ll continue to say what the New York Times and Columbia University won’t:
J’accuse.
Spain was conquered by Islam and then reconquered by the Spanish. Of course in Israel’s case it was eventually the British from whom nationhood was won.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_suicide_attacks